Backup crew

Mission parameters

• Mass: 6850 kg (15,101.7 lb)
• Perigee: 196 km (121.8 mi)
• Apogee: 223 km (138.6 mi)
• Inclination: 51.6°
• Period: 88.7 minutes

Mission highlights

Soyuz T-14 demonstrated the wisdom of maintaining a Soyuz at Salyut 7 as an emergency medical evacuation vehicle: the mission commander Vasyutin fell ill which forced an early termination of the planned 6 month mission.

The main goals of the mission was to receive Cosmos 1686, a modified TKS

TKS spacecraft

TKS spacecraft was a Soviet spacecraft design in the late 1960s intended to supply the military Almaz space station. The spacecraft was designed for manned or autonomous cargo resupply use...

, and conduct spacewalks with application to future space stations. The first goal was achieved on October 2. Cosmos 1686 contained 4500 kg (9,920.8 lb) of freight, including large items like a girder to be assembled outside Salyut 7, and the Kristallizator materials processing apparatus. However, the crew of Soyuz T-14 were unable to achieve their second goal. By late October Vasyutin was no longer helping with experiments because he was ill.

On November 13 the cosmonauts began scrambling their communications with the TsUP

Mission Control Center

A mission control center is an entity that manages aerospace vehicle flights, usually from the point of lift-off until the landing or the end of the mission. A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry, and send commands to the...

. Return to Earth occurred soon after. Sources at NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 have reported that psychologists with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency cited Soyuz T-14 as ending prematurely due to "mood and performance issues" with the crew. Vasyutin's illness is said to have been caused by a prostate

Prostate

The prostate is a compound tubuloalveolar exocrine gland of the male reproductive system in most mammals....

infection, which had manifested itself as inflammation and a fever.